The Great TCA Debate

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The Great TCA Debate

Post by SD »

Split by jdaw1 from Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame.


From reading in multiple forums the worst offender by far for TCA is the 1983 Cockburn. The problem is TCA in the cellar, not bad corks. Thus in a case, if one bottle is bad all the rest will be. Most cases are bad, but multiple batches were bottled and some are still good.

TCA from the cellar is a well documented problem with many well known wineries having the problem. The cause is not always known. Cockburn did not seem to have problems in the 1985 and later vintages though.
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by Andy Velebil »

I've got to disagree with SD. Cockburn's has not and does not have a TCA problem winery wide. They had a large batch of bad corks for the 1983 vintage, pure and simple. If their winery was infected as a whole then we would see many other vintages and products also TCA tainted and that is simply not the case.

While there are some wineries in the US and abroad that have had past issues of winery wide contamination, from what I've studied about it is it was far less than what people really think. And I've never heard or encountered a winery wide TCA issue in Port wines.

I would love to see your proof of why you think that Cockburn's has or had a winery wide TCA problem.
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by SD »

Andy, I have no proof as to Cockburn’s having a TCA problem within the winery. I’m sure Cockburn knows the actual reason for the TCA problem, but they are not telling, they do not even want to admit a problem exists at all.

TCA is produced by the combination of chlorine and mold. Wineries are wet places so mold is common. Wood adsorbs chlorine, which could come from sterilization procedures, fungicide, mildicide, or wood preservative. When this wood gets moldy TCA can be produced. TCA can be released in the air and be absorbed into wine. The problem with TCA is that the human nose can detect it at around five parts per trillion, so just the tiniest trace can ruin a wine. Our noses are unusually sensitive to this chemical although of course sensitivity varies.

The problem with the 1983 Cockburn vintage does not have to be winery wide. All is takes is one barrel or wooden tank to be treated with chlorine and get moldy later. This later contaminated other wine when blended. Few wineries have tanks large enough to bottle the whole vintage so multiple bottlings produce case variation latter. The wine should be consistent within the case, although with time bottle variation happens within the same case.

I believe the 1983 Cockburn is a winery problem because of forum reports. Roy has had consistently TCA infected bottles. All bottles from a case are bad, and he has had multiple bad cases. But other people have reported good bottles, and consistently good bottles. This is consistent with winery TCA problems.

If the problem was due to bad corks the problem would be more random. Vintage port uses a better grade of cork with smaller pore sizes. These corks are less likely to have mold problems than lower quality corks. Even if the whole lot of corks was very bad, some bottles should be free of TCA. Roy should have some good bottles.

So my best guess and education tells me the problem with the 1983 Cockburn is that it was winery related rather than a cork problem. But this is speculation. Since people have widely different sensitivity to TCA, its reporting in forums is not accurate. So I am not sure if entire cases are bad and some are mostly good.

However I do not believe TCA can develop in the bottle. All the early press was very favourable for the 1983 Cockburn. If bad corks were the problem, the press would have noted a substantial amount of bad bottles. But if the problem was winery caused, the good cases were shipped out first and the bad ones sold later. Since man is greedy by nature, and Cockburn is run by a big corporation this seems to me the most likely scenario. So I stand by my belief the problem is winery related with the additional problem of greed thrown in.
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Niepoort vintage VA problems

Post by SD »

I put away five cases of the 1985 Niepoort at release. The 1985 vintage was getting great press and I tried the young vintage with Dirk and was impressed enough to invest in it. Very sadly I have not had a good bottle since. I am patient with my ports and did not open a bottle for fifteen years. I was very depressed to find it had turned in the bottle and had so much volatile acidity (VA) that it was undrinkable. All my cases have consistently been undrinkable and have been poured down the toilet after one sip.

So it is very disturbing to read of other Niepoort vintages now having VA. The 1994 was excellent at release and the 1997 was even better. I did not further invest in Niepoort so have not personally tried the 1994 and 1997 recently. But this sounds like a very serious problem, that many of Dirk's best vintages have a problem with VA.

Many food products are fermented. The production of acetic acid (VA) is very common in fermentations. In wine many types of yeast and bacteria can cause VA. I believe carbon dioxide is usually produced as a byproduct of the fermentation. This can cause spritzy bottles if the fermentation happened in the bottle. Bacterial contamination is common in wine unless they are sterile filtered, and ports are rarely sterile filtered.

Vinegar production by acetobacter bacteria is a potential problem with table wine. But acetobacter can not grow in port because of the high alcohol levels of port. But many other kinds of bacteria can grow in port. Usually the natural acidity of wine keeps these bacteria in check. But the best vintages are often warm years which lower the natural acidity (and raises the pH of the port). Picking the grapes latter to get higher sugar levels will further reduce the acidity. If the acid level is too low, bacteria can further ferment in the bottle and slowly increase the VA level.

It sounds like Niepoort needs to sterile filter its vintage ports, or do something to reduce bacterial contamination. Sterile filtration does decrease the quality somewhat. Parker rants and raves about this, but goes overboard. My degree was in chemistry and I understand what filtration does to a wine, it does strip out good qualities. But it is better to lower the overall quality of the port by a point or two and have it survive to be a fine old port than not to filter it and have it ruined after ten years.
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by DRT »

SD wrote:I’m sure Cockburn knows the actual reason for the TCA problem, but they are not telling, they do not even want to admit a problem exists at all.
SD,

I can say for certain that this statement is absolutely not true. I and others from this forum have sat at the same table and tasted the C83 with the very man who made it and he was extremely open and honest about this flaw and a few others in different vintages that he has produced.

As to the claim that TCA cannot develop in the bottle; you seem to be reading different books to everyone else here and elsewhere :wink:

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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by Andy Velebil »

SD,

If you have no proof of Cockburns having a winery wide problem then it is irresponsible to make that statement as you stated in your post
From reading in multiple forums the worst offender by far for TCA is the 1983 Cockburn. The problem is TCA in the cellar, not bad corks.
I know you have a long history of making your own port here in California, importing, and drinking Port. But you of all people should know better to make a statement like that with no factual background.
Andy, I have no proof as to Cockburn’s having a TCA problem within the winery. I’m sure Cockburn knows the actual reason for the TCA problem, but they are not telling, they do not even want to admit a problem exists at all.
As Derek mentioned, I and others have spoken at length to the man who made this and every vintage of Cockburn's for the past 30 years. He is very forthcoming and honest about the fact they got a large batch of bad TCA infected corks. It wasn't detected at the time and sadly wasn't till a long time later that it became evident. I and others have had fine non-TCA damaged bottles, but they are few and far between. But even the infected ones take several hours of decanting to even start to show some signs of it, mainly due to the massive fruit that makes them IMO one of the best '83 VP out there (when not corked). At the recent :poltf: Port Gala this bottle was present and brought by someone who stated they had not had a bad bottle from their case yet. Roy, Richard, and I decanted it and checked it at that time for any TCA issues, knowing its history, and could find none. Only some 5+ hours later at the dinner did it start showing some problems. Some tasters didn't notice it at first, but as it sat in the glasses it got worse as the evening went on.
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Re: Niepoort vintage VA problems

Post by JacobH »

SD wrote:It sounds like Niepoort needs to sterile filter its vintage ports, or do something to reduce bacterial contamination. Sterile filtration does decrease the quality somewhat. Parker rants and raves about this, but goes overboard. My degree was in chemistry and I understand what filtration does to a wine, it does strip out good qualities. But it is better to lower the overall quality of the port by a point or two and have it survive to be a fine old port than not to filter it and have it ruined after ten years.
As a non-wine-maker, can I ask what "sterile filtering" involves? Is this the process that non-VP and table-wine goes through to stop it throwing a sediment in the bottle? If so, it would it not turn the VP into a Ruby?
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Sterile Filtration

Post by SD »

In a normal filtration of a wine, wine is pumped through filter pads. These filter pads come in various pore sizes. In a rough filtration, wine goes through filter pads with large pore sizes. This takes out particles in the wine to turn a cloudy wine brilliant. Sterile filtration uses filter pads of very small pore size to filter out yeast and bacteria. Yeast cells are bigger than bacteria, so a filter pad of .65 micron filters out yeast yet the bacteria can go through. A pore size of .45 micron takes out bacteria. These are the normal pore sizes used for sterile filtration in wine, the pharmaceutical industry uses .22 micron for absolute sterility.

Filtration is done in steps from large pore size down to as small as desired. If a wine was filtered through pads with a small pore size first, the pads would clog very quickly and have to be changed constantly with higher labour and pad costs. Each filtration step slightly strips the wine, so the less steps the better. Since sterile filtration is the last step in a series of filtrations, it is not preferred for fine wine. But to reduce the threat of yeast fermenting residual sugar, or the brettanomyces yeast spoiling the taste of the wine, a sterile filtration may be done. The smaller pore size to take out bacteria is normally done to take out malolactic bacteria, but it would also take out spoilage bacteria that could cause acetic acid to develop in the bottle.

Filtration is taking out physical particles. The sediment produced in port is a chemical change of oxidation of color pigments and tannins. Filtration has little effect on this chemical change.
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by SD »

DRT wrote:As to the claim that TCA cannot develop in the bottle; you seem to be reading different books to everyone else here and elsewhere
Derek
Dereck please provide the name of even one book of the books you claim say that says TCA develops in the bottle. As a winemaker who reads extensively and goes to trade seminars I have never heard of TCA developing in the bottle. Please enlighten me with the name of the book and the page number, not some unsubstantiated quote in a forum.

I am not claiming that I know everything, I have lots more to learn. I enjoy learning about wine and if I am wrong I genuinely wish to know the truth. But I do have thirty-three years experience in the wine industry in Napa Valley so I want to see facts backing up your claim.
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by g-man »

Interesting SD,

I know you've mentioned in your point that sterile filtration should not be done on fine wine. I would have to say if I found out that XXX winery I was paying a certain premium for was doing that, I would not buy from them. Sterile filtration is just hiding the fact that they need to clean out their equipment and cellars.

I pay a premium for certain wines because I know they do the manually intensive labor of multiple rackings instead of just dumping it through a filter. And while you may be able to filter out the bacteria that generates the TCA using a sterile filtration method, would imagine, if TCA was already present, you'll still have the same problem, but now you have a wine that lost some of the flavors it should have had.
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by DRT »

SD wrote:
DRT wrote:As to the claim that TCA cannot develop in the bottle; you seem to be reading different books to everyone else here and elsewhere
Derek
Dereck please provide the name of even one book of the books you claim say that says TCA develops in the bottle. As a winemaker who reads extensively and goes to trade seminars I have never heard of TCA developing in the bottle. Please enlighten me with the name of the book and the page number, not some unsubstantiated quote in a forum.

I am not claiming that I know everything, I have lots more to learn. I enjoy learning about wine and if I am wrong I genuinely wish to know the truth. But I do have thirty-three years experience in the wine industry in Napa Valley so I want to see facts backing up your claim.
SD,

Michael Broadbent, Vintage Wine - Page 542 says:
Corked - Faulty cork that has a deterious effect, spoiling the smell and taste of the wine due, it has been discovered, to trichloranisole. An increasing roblem; less frequent in the days of hand-corking machines where the cellermen could inspect each cork. The introduction of bottling lines in the 1960s put paid to such close inspection.
You can also try reading this.

...and this.

...and a few hundred other hits from google that seem to present more evidence to the fact that TCA is predominently a cork problem and therefore something that more often taints the wine in the bottle rather than in the cellar.

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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by jdaw1 »

The list of name-and-shame corked wines ought to be kept separate from the Great TCA Debate (both being worthwhile, but being different). If you object to my splitting the latter from the former please PM me within 24 hours.
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by Andy Velebil »

I think there may be a bit of misunderstanding here as to what exactly is ment between TCA occuring in bottle and not. So correct me if I'm wrong as to what we're talking about here......Yes wine can be corked "in bottle" as a result of a contaminated cork being inserted to seal it. And yes, although much rarer, wine can be TCA infected prior to bottling due a winery wide problem. But TCA cannot spontaneously appear in a bottled wine if the cork and winery are not infected to begin with.

Also keep in mind that TCA can and does become more "corky" as time goes on as it's exposed to air. some bottles can show more "corked" than others depending on how much they were infected. With a low level TCA infection, and given how powerful the fruit and tannins are in young top notch VP's, it can be quite hard if not impossible to always tell if a bottle was corked. Especially since virtually all major publications pop-and-pour wines they are rating, or at best a couple hours decanted...but that is rare. With the Cockburns, as an example, even people very sensitive to TCA have not detected it at first decant. Only hours later would it start to show it's ugly head.
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TCA developing

Post by SD »

I just looked up the definition of "DEVELOP" and its major meaning is: to grow, to increase, to build up, to originate.
In wine the word DEVELOP has those meanings traditionally in the increase of bottle bouquet with time. The word DEVELOP also normally means in wine the CHANGES that happen with age, the softening of tannin and the many other changes as a wine ages.

Bad flavors can DEVELOP in wine, in the meaning of increase. A have referred in other posts to volatile acidity increasing in a wine though bacteriological spoilage. Brettanomyces is another spoilage that can DEVELOP in the bottle.

In another post I said I TCA does NOT DEVELOP in the bottle. TCA is a very volatile chemical, so volatile it is found in the air. Because of this volatility when a cork in put into a bottle of wine, the TCA is absorbed into the wine very quickly. I am not sure of the exact time, if it is hours or days, but certainly within a month all TCA from the cork is in the wine. Any winery using corks as wine closures almost always ages a wine for several months minimum before release. By that time all TCA from a tainted cork is completely in the wine when the consumer buys it.

When I said TCA does NOT DEVELOP in the bottle I am referring to the normal process of buying a bottle of wine and seeing if it changes. I still challenge somebody to show me any reference to TCA DEVELOPING in the bottle after leaving the winery.

Cork taint was a huge problem in the industry in the eighties. Chlorine was used to sanitize and bleach the corks, and chlorine is turned into TCA by mold. Corks are a natural product and can easily get moldy. One problem the cork industry had besides using chlorine was that the wash water and rinse water were used over and over which spreads the mold from bad corks to good corks. The cork industry has changed its practices of treating corks, and far fewer corks are tainted now than before. But cork taint is still a problem.

The 1983 Cockburn vintage port was bottled when cork taint problems were very high. So Cockburn may have unknowingly used a very bad batch of corks. But again I want to mention that the port got very favorable press from many sources when first released. Many, but not all reviewers note if one of the bottles they tried was corky. I personally tried it several times in the early years and had good bottles. Cork taint was not an issue then.

Recent forum posts have said that the huge fruit of the 1983 Cockburn hides the TCA. I have never had a wine that I have not detected as corked within the first few minutes. I do have a very sensitive nose for cork taint and have been a paid professional wine judge for major wine competitions in California. I’ve also passed a rigorous test to qualify wine judges for the California State Fair. When I taste young port, I taste it at many different times. I give it time to open up, and I would think professional reviewers would do the same. So I do think cork taint would have been noticed in early reviews.

Therefore TCA must have developed in the bottle, or several different batches of the 1983 Cockburn exist. Since I have claimed and continue to claim that TCA does NOT DEVELOP in the bottle, multiple batches exist. Multiple batches can be from winery caused TCA in some lots, or different corks lots being used during the bottling. Since Cockburn personal have indicated in private conversations to some forum members (certainly not admitted in print for me or the world to know) that bad corks are the problem; some of the cork lots must have been better quality than others. Wineries usually buy corks in bags of 1000, which only bottles 83 cases. So it takes a big cork supply for bottling. Some may have been laying around and used from an earlier bottling run and be different. So many reasons can be possible for this variation I am not going to speculate further.
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Re: Sterile Filtration

Post by JacobH »

SD wrote:Filtration is taking out physical particles. The sediment produced in port is a chemical change of oxidation of color pigments and tannins. Filtration has little effect on this chemical change.
I understood everything up until this point. My understanding is that the difference between say an unfiltered LBV (which will throw quite a lot of sediment) and a filtered LBV (which eventually might a tiny amount) is, prima facia, that one has been filtered and the other has not. If the sediment in Port is not arrested from developing due to filtration; what do the shippers do to filtered Port to stop it throwing a sediment?
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by JacobH »

jdaw1, on the 17ii2009 wrote:The list of name-and-shame corked wines ought to be kept separate from the Great TCA Debate (both being worthwhile, but being different). If you object to my splitting the latter from the former please PM me within 24 hours.
Perhaps we could continue as suggested, it being the 19th? Also, perhaps we could give some thought to consolidating the data (either on the first page of this thread or perhaps on the TN index)?

Thanks!
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Re: Corked/Spoilt Ports - Name and Shame

Post by Andy Velebil »

I still challenge somebody to show me any reference to TCA DEVELOPING in the bottle after leaving the winery.
Because of this volatility when a cork in put into a bottle of wine, the TCA is absorbed into the wine very quickly. I am not sure of the exact time, if it is hours or days, but certainly within a month all TCA from the cork is in the wine.
Shawn,
You're contradicting yourself here. You say TCA cannot develop in bottle, yet then you say when a cork is put into a bottle of wine it can absorb the TCA within a month. So if the wine was fine when bottled, and just moments before being corked, then a TCA tainted cork inserted the wine will then DEVELOP TCA in the bottle, no? I've never seen a table that says exactly how fast wine absorbs TCA from a cork or other source, so no one really knows for sure other than educated guesses based on their particular experience.
I have never had a wine that I have not detected as corked within the first few minutes.
You know I respect your experience but this statement is over the top. Even the most sensitive people I know miss stuff. TCA can still be present and you can't smell it in the traditional sense of wetcardboard etc. I've been at wine tastings where the wine maker had opened bottles in front of me and other people in the wine biz that he tasted and smelled at the same time as me. No signs of TCA on the nose at all, the palate was still excellant and no signs. However, since he had had the wine hundreds of time he noticed something just wasn't right on the palate. He opened another and side by side and they were different. The first had low level TCA. Like the 1983 Cockburn's some of us had a couple weeks ago. That was opened by three people who knew the issues with it, we looked for it extensively when we decanted it, and this by people who are sensitive to TCA, one extremely sensitive and no signs at decanting.

As you know TCA also becomes more pronounced once the cork is pulled and the wine is exposed to air. So it is very possible to have a wine that has no outward signs at first, then slowly gets "corkier" as time goes on in an open bottle, decanter, or glass.

TCA doesn't always rear its ugly head as soon as you pull the cork. As you know there are levels of TCA from vary minor to major parts per trillion. How many wine reviewers or judges spend more than a minute or two with any wine they rate...I'd guess less than 1-2%. Especially in young massively extracted VP it's a lot harder to notice low level taint as the fruit can cover it up and hide flaws when so young.
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Re: TCA developing

Post by Glenn E. »

SD wrote:I have never had a wine that I have not detected as corked within the first few minutes.
I have on several occasions.

However, I'm not terribly sensitive to TCA, so my personal example isn't worth much. One person at one of those tastings, though, is extremely sensitive to TCA. The bottle we were tasting wasn't showing as well as people had expected, so we discussed a variety of reasons why it might not be showing well. Someone suggested the possibility that it was very slightly corked and that that might be the "off" feeling we were getting. The suggestion was considered and then rejected by the gathered tasters, including the person who is extremely sensitive to TCA. We ultimately concluded that it was just an off bottle... it happens, as you all know very well.

The next day, that person attempted to share the leftovers with another friend and they couldn't drink the bottle. It was corked, and in a very major way. But it took 20+ hours to show it.

Edit: We had another very similar experience with the same Port a month later, but this time we could tell it was corked because of the previous experience. Or rather... we detected the same "off" feeling and predicted that it would show corked after considerable time, and in fact it did.
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Re: The Great TCA Debate

Post by jdaw1 »

A recent Fonseca 1985 showed no TCA on opening (though I am very insensitive to it), but at D+17hr was undrinkable. It was left for three weeks were in a stoppered room-temperature decanter, after which the TCA was all gone. So some air can show the TCA, but more air can make it go away.
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Re: TCA developing

Post by SD »

SD wrote:When I said TCA does NOT DEVELOP in the bottle I am referring to the normal process of buying a bottle of wine and seeing if it changes. I still challenge somebody to show me any reference to TCA DEVELOPING in the bottle after leaving the winery.
I thought I was clear. I said: "I am referring to ...buying a bottle......TCA DEVELOPING in the bottle after leaving the winery."

I am talking about a consumer experience, of the changes the consumer notices from first release of a wine to the retail market through later aging. The 1983 Cockburn VP was released more than twenty years ago and the real debate is why does the TCA level seem higher now in most bottles than when first released to the public?
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Re: The Great TCA Debate

Post by g-man »

I do want to point out that TCA gets a bad rep sometimes.

http://www.practicalwinery.com/novdec08/page1.htm

and contrary to popular bellief, Air does not blow away TCA

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nothing in the air would force TCA chemically react to decompose or become a gas and float away.

If the smell does blow off, I think it might have been http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Octen-3-ol
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Re: The Great TCA Debate

Post by g-man »

TCA for young ports is something I can't taste until the after a few sips.

The first few sips gives you way too much information, that my brain needs to really switch to "taste this port mode".

So after a few minutes of swishing and thinking. Usually by the 3rd-4th sip, is when I can say ... "mm this is corked".
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Re: TCA developing

Post by Andy Velebil »

SD wrote:
SD wrote:When I said TCA does NOT DEVELOP in the bottle I am referring to the normal process of buying a bottle of wine and seeing if it changes. I still challenge somebody to show me any reference to TCA DEVELOPING in the bottle after leaving the winery.
I thought I was clear. I said: "I am referring to ...buying a bottle......TCA DEVELOPING in the bottle after leaving the winery."
I am talking about a consumer experience, of the changes the consumer notices from first release of a wine to the retail market through later aging. The 1983 Cockburn VP was released more than twenty years ago and the real debate is why does the TCA level seem higher now in most bottles than when first released to the public?
Ok that makes it a bit clearer as to what you refer. I agree, once bottled TCA cannot permeate its way through a foil capsule and/or inserted non-tained cork to taint an otherwise fine bottle.

As to why now 20 years later. I'd have to say there is low level TCA in them that as the massive fruit has faded and the longer they are left in a decanter the more pronounced it has become. As I mentioned, at first decant all seems well, then as it airates it gets far worse as time goes on. Like I said, there are almost no reviewers that will decant wines for any significant period of time prior to writting a review. Most are popped and poured within maybe an hour, or two at most. So it's quite easy for very low level TCA to go un-noticed. Especially since the Cockburn's isn't a "Taylor's or Fonseca" and it has really slid under the radar of most people and reviewers. As discussed in another thread on :poltf: the major magazine reviewers rarely rate Ports unless its a major delcared year. And sans the recent 1977's that Wine Spectator re-reviewed recently, have you ever seen a major publication do multiple re-reviews of an older VP, I know I haven't.

Checking....
Wine Advocate only did one review of it in 01/1989. Wine Spectator only one review also. So not exactly what I'd call a lot of reviews from major publications.
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Re: TCA developing

Post by DRT »

Andy V wrote:
SD wrote:
SD wrote:When I said TCA does NOT DEVELOP in the bottle I am referring to the normal process of buying a bottle of wine and seeing if it changes. I still challenge somebody to show me any reference to TCA DEVELOPING in the bottle after leaving the winery.
I thought I was clear. I said: "I am referring to ...buying a bottle......TCA DEVELOPING in the bottle after leaving the winery."
I am talking about a consumer experience, of the changes the consumer notices from first release of a wine to the retail market through later aging. The 1983 Cockburn VP was released more than twenty years ago and the real debate is why does the TCA level seem higher now in most bottles than when first released to the public?
Ok that makes it a bit clearer as to what you refer. I agree, once bottled TCA cannot permeate its way through a foil capsule and/or inserted non-tained cork to taint an otherwise fine bottle.

As to why now 20 years later. I'd have to say there is low level TCA in them that as the massive fruit has faded and the longer they are left in a decanter the more pronounced it has become. As I mentioned, at first decant all seems well, then as it airates it gets far worse as time goes on. Like I said, there are almost no reviewers that will decant wines for any significant period of time prior to writting a review. Most are popped and poured within maybe an hour, or two at most. So it's quite easy for very low level TCA to go un-noticed. Especially since the Cockburn's isn't a "Taylor's or Fonseca" and it has really slid under the radar of most people and reviewers. As discussed in another thread on :poltf: the major magazine reviewers rarely rate Ports unless its a major delcared year. And sans the recent 1977's that Wine Spectator re-reviewed recently, have you ever seen a major publication do multiple re-reviews of an older VP, I know I haven't.

Checking....
Wine Advocate only did one review of it in 01/1989. Wine Spectator only one review also. So not exactly what I'd call a lot of reviews from major publications.
I know that wine is [TCA]"corked" from the moment it is "corked" - ie it does not "develop" over time but is something that happens from the point in time that the tainted cork (or whatever else) comes into contact with the wine.

I read your post as claiming that this was not a process that could happen in a bottle and that only happened in vats in a winery. I seem to have misunderstood your words.
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
Ernest H. Cockburn
SD
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Re: The Great TCA Debate

Post by SD »

Thanks g-man for the link to an excellent review of TCA in Practical Winery. With the holidays and being busy at work I had not read that article yet, but it helps in this topic.

The article points out how many things can lead to TCA production. I know of one winery that had so many causes of TCA in the winery that they abandoned it and built a new winery to solve their TCA problem.

One of the most important points in the article for this topic goes over the impact of TCA on wine. At below threshold levels TCA subdues the fruit aroma and flavor. At higher levels people notice the smell of cork taint.

The article agrees with my experience that TCA hides the fruit of a port. In below threshold levels I am assuming the TCA is hiding the fruit ”“ I can not prove it since I can not detect the TCA. But TCA normally gets the blame for the off bottles since cork taint is so prevalent. When I can detect TCA I definitely feel it hide the fruit.

But many other posts are saying the opposite, that the fruit is hiding the TCA which shows much later. I have never experienced that. Maybe it is because I finish all bottles of port and do not have left any for later.
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